


Can agents of chaos retire?

by qwanderer



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, Movie Night, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28273638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: Aziraphale prepared to bring Crowley back into the house with the determination of a doctoral student three weeks before the presentation of their thesis, searching for the one volume of primary source material they believe will make it all fall into place.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21
Collections: Podrama Team Christmas Exchange





	Can agents of chaos retire?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [irisbleufic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/gifts).



> This story turned out to be an intensive exercise in characterization, and a really interesting challenge! I've never written book!husbands before, only show!husbands. It's kinda intimidating to look to the incredible subtleties of irisbleufic's interpretation of these characters as a model, but hopefully I've gotten it at least a little bit right!

Aziraphale missed Crowley.

Which was ridiculous, he’d only left this morning and hadn’t gotten far. He felt far away, though.

Aziraphale prepared to bring Crowley back into the house with the determination of a doctoral student three weeks before the presentation of their thesis, searching for the one volume of primary source material they believe will make it all fall into place.

If Crowley had been out on the beach, looking for treasures or even just staring out at the waves, then Aziraphale would have left him to it. If his husband had been happily mucking about in the garden, alternately threatening the plants and humming some modern song rendered unrecognizable without the accompaniment of electronic instruments, that would have been fine as well. 

But Crowley wasn’t at his usual routine of inspirational hissed threats and laying out of consequences. And he certainly wasn’t humming. 

He’d been swearing up a storm and snapping at the plants. He’d been out there half the day, despite the drizzle, and when Aziraphale had gone to check on him, Crowley was filthy and frazzled and almost certainly freezing cold. When the angel suggested that perhaps it was time to come back inside, Crowley snapped at him, too.

“I’ll be in when I’m done!”

Aziraphale could see the little flinch Crowley gave on hearing his own tone, but Crowley didn’t look up or acknowledge it in any way, just continued to go on about how much work there still was left to do and how much of a disaster the herbs at the shady edge of the vegetable garden were turning out to be. 

“My dear,” said Aziraphale, in a dry tone which might have implied he didn’t know why he loved the ridiculous serpent in front of him, “I’m going to have to insist that you come inside.”

Crowley stood, biting his lip as he surveyed the wreckage under the overhanging boughs at the edge of the orchard. “Yeah,” he agreed at last, wiping his hands down his jeans in a fruitless attempt to get some of the mud off of one of the two surfaces. “Probably right.”

Aziraphale took him by the elbow and led him inside. “I’ll make us cocoa,” he said, tone brooking no resistance. “We can settle in front of the television.” When Crowley remained numb-looking, not engaging with those statements or looking at anything in particular, Aziraphale rubbed his hands down the damp fabric over Crowley’s upper arms, then, heedless of the mud, pulled him into a careful embrace.

“Ngh, no,” Crowley objected feebly. “I’ll get you all wet.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” Aziraphale tutted. “I won’t be comfortable until you are, anyway.” 

Crowley closed his eyes and shivered. When he opened his eyes, he finally managed to look at Aziraphale from between slitted eyelids. “That might, mmh.” He took a slightly unsteady breath. “Might take some doing, tonight.”

“Well, then, we’d best get started, hadn’t we?” Aziraphale said, pretending a confidence he didn’t entirely feel. “Would you like help changing?”

“Best not.”

He did look like he might be in the sort of place in his head where too many touches on bare skin might do more harm than good. Aziraphale would just have to make sure he got cared for in other ways. 

“I’ll start cocoa, then,” he said briskly. “Off you go. Get into something dry.”

Warm and soft, too, the angel hoped, looking after Crowley as he meandered towards the bedroom. 

Aziraphale prepared the cocoa with care, sweet and hot with just the right amount of bitter chocolate.

Now what was the right thing to put on the television?

In these moods, it usually wasn’t advisable to ask Crowley to make that sort of decision. Aziraphale would have to have something ready - something interesting enough to keep Crowley sitting still and not dwelling too much on whatever had gotten under his skin, but also nothing that had too much chance of upsetting him further. 

Aziraphale thought first of some wholesome and not-too-mindless reality television, perhaps about humans fixing up antiques or old houses, but he didn’t think  _ he _ could feign appropriate interest in those himself unless books or one of his other special interests were involved (and they’d probably exhausted their supply of episodes on that front a few weeks ago). And besides, if the point was to avoid triggering any of Crowley’s overcrowded storeroom of bad memories, shows about the minutiae of history and antique objects had almost as much of a chance of upsetting that as the bloody, violent movies Aziraphale had been learning to avoid. 

So Aziraphale flipped through various menus on their television, searching for something appropriately… Well. “Mild” wasn’t really the word, but rather in a potential sweet spot where thoughts might be captured and diverted to more pleasant places for an hour or two. 

A familiar name from the later compilations of Scheherezade’s tales caught his eye, and as he investigated further, he found it had been adapted into a cartoon - not one they’d seen before, and hopefully both adventurous enough and bloodless enough for the current situation. 

“Sinbad?” Crowley commented curiously as he wandered back into the lounge, in a worn and comfortable long-sleeved tee and soft pajama pants. “How much do you suppose it’s got to do with the old stories?”

Aziraphale offered up one of the mugs of cocoa with just a bit of a flourish. “Shall we find out?”

“Sure,” said Crowley, shrugging, and he took the mug and sat, curling around the warmth like the snake he sometimes was.

Aziraphale started to say something about Crowley deserving a rest after his struggle this afternoon, but Crowley slurped his cocoa loudly and annoyingly, apparently attempting to drown the words out.

They snuggled together under a soft cable-knit blanket in a charcoal grey - or at least Aziraphale was snuggled up as close to Crowley’s side as he thought he could get away with - and Crowley kept picking at the edges where the cables crossed - not out of any intent to destroy, Aziraphale was sure, but out of a persistent curiosity, and also simply for the sake of fidgeting. 

Thankfully, the movie did draw some of his attention, too.

The movie was full of daring, flashy but bloodless fights. Aziraphale had dared to hope that that might be the case. He’d even hoped for the tone of irreverent humor, the kind that humanity was so often drawn to in the moment and then let fade into history. Shakespeare’s plays might be respected as “high art” now, but when they first played to raucous mobs in the standing room on the floor of the Globe, they’d sounded something like this - often silly and vaguely suggestive.

He had not thought to wish for the moments of quiet contemplation that punctuated the film. The characters stared out at the sea, struggling to come to terms with their places in life and the options available to them. The vastness and freedom of the sea beckoned them out with the beauty of the unknown. 

It was during one of these speeches that Crowley finally set down his empty mug and took a breath that seemed to flow out of him, taking at least the edge of his tension with it. He put his head down on Aziraphale's shoulder, dark hair just begging to be stroked. Aziraphale happily obliged.

And then the characters in the film left the human world and went to a realm of chaos, where forces beyond the mundane plotted to level the world for fun, like a child knocking over towers of blocks.

A god tested Sinbad and found him wanting, declared him inherently evil. Made him an unwilling cosmic pawn to instigate war. He was left to choose between keeping his head down and letting the chips fall, or risking his own existence trying to protect what he loved.

Crowley’s hand was plucking absently at the blanket again. Aziraphale had been hesitant to stop him before, but now, with Crowley leaning in closer and seeking out Aziraphale’s touch in small ways, Aziraphale felt confident that it would be all right to take Crowley’s hand in his and soothe those nervous fingers with firm, slow strokes of his own. 

They watched Sinbad argue with his star-crossed companion, mulling over the difficult choice that faced him. He wanted to do the right thing, the thing that would cause the least suffering to the world and those in it he loved. The cost would be only to himself. Marina insisted that Sinbad, himself, was also worthy of love. 

Beside Aziraphale, Crowley fidgeted slightly, but mostly he stared at the solemn events progressing on the screen with a focus that worried Aziraphale. Perhaps he’d chosen exactly the wrong thing.

He found he’d ceased to breathe, and the stillness that resulted made it obvious that Crowley was holding his breath as well. Aziraphale forced his own lungs to work properly, in and out, smooth and slow, hoping that Crowley would echo the steady motion. Or at least that it would be soothing on some level, like the sound of waves. 

Sinbad pointed his ship in the direction of his doom. He’d failed in his quest. He would die and the destruction of the world would go on, and he would have lost everything. For principles that were… well. It wasn’t entirely clear where he’d gotten them. They were counter to the life he’d chosen, that was for certain. 

Then everything changed. The reality on the screen was overturned in one beautiful, soaring moment of triumph. The sky cracked open and revealed a thwarted, deeply irritated cosmic puppet master. Sinbad had sabotaged her plan for destruction after all, just not on purpose. Crowley breathed again, somewhat roughly, and valiantly attempted to hide a sniffle. 

As the film ended, sweet and hopeful and irreverent as it had begun, Crowley hid his face in Aziraphale’s neck. Aziraphale wrapped warm arms around him, hoping that Crowley’s evening had been, if nothing else, a little better than the afternoon.

Aziraphale gave him a moment, and then said, “Look at me. Look at me, please, dear one. I would love to see your eyes.”

When Crowley turned his head and one earnest yellow eye was revealed, Aziraphale decided that would have to do. He stroked Crowley’s cheek and asked, “Feeling any better?”

“Yes,” Crowley responded quietly.

“What was it that had you so worked up,” Aziraphale asked carefully, “out in the vegetable garden?”

Crowley gave a wordless grumble and hid his face again before saying, “Mint got out of hand. Had to cull it. It was already too late to save the dill, though.”

“Oh, dear,” said Aziraphale. “I thought all the mint was in pots?”

“It was,” Crowley said, sounding annoyed - probably at himself. “Escaped. I forgot I’d set one down straight in the herb bed, and the roots spread.” He shook his head, so that his hair tickled the skin of Aziraphale’s neck. “Rookie mistake. And then I let it go on far too long. You cannot afford to go soft on mint. Murderous stuff.”

“That does sound like quite the pickle,” Aziraphale said. He couldn’t relate, himself, to being hesitant to dispatch a plant or two for the good of the garden. But this was Crowley. His exceptional, precious Crowley. 

He hummed quietly, not sure what else to say.

Crowley huffed in frustration, finally lifting his head. “Sorry. For being. Like I am.”

Aziraphale said lightly, “Darling, I hope you know I wouldn’t have you any other way than ‘like you are.’ I love how you are.”

Crowley’s features wrinkled into skepticism, and he made a noise that sounded like, “Nehh.”

“You have it in you to do the things that make the cycle of life possible,” Aziraphale said. “Which is no easy task. Life must be broken down to make way for new life. And I haven’t always seen or appreciated how much it can hurt you to do what must be done. To make a decision to do something cruel. But I love both that compassion, and the strength it takes for you to push forward anyway.”

At that, Crowley looked at him properly for the first time that day, eyes wide and luminous. 

Every time Crowley looked surprised to hear those things, Aziraphale felt a pang somewhere deep in his chest.

All Aziraphale had to do was reach out and give the gentlest of nudges, pulling Crowley closer, and Crowley leaned in and kissed him, slow and sweet at first and then hard enough to leave them both breathless.

“Hmm, yeah,” Crowley said, very deliberately not panting. “The day’s definitely taken a turn for the better.”

“I’m glad,” Aziraphale said, and as he coaxed Crowley closer and into his lap, he kept the conversation moving. “So what did you think? Did the movie live up to the myths?”

Crowley slid into place easily, letting Aziraphale cradle him close. “Liked it better, I think. Says something new.”

“You do often like the newest stories,” Aziraphale commented.

“I like what they make out of the things they come back to,” Crowley said. “In their own way, they make ideas immortal. Not unchanging, because they’re always changing. Learning new things the hard way. They might fight each other, kill each other, but they can always pick up something of what remains and make beauty out of it. Made from something they killed, but it’s alive because it’s about  _ them _ . The ones living now.”

“They do like to rewrite the old stories again and again, don't they?” Aziraphale said.

“Old stories. New poets. There's never any shortage of poets.”

“True.” Aziraphale let one hand slip under Crowley’s shirt to rest in the small of his back and gently, oh so gently, nudge him closer. “But right now the only being I want to hear is you.”

“Oh, Aziraphale,” Crowley said, lips brushing Aziraphale’s neck and making him shiver. “You’re too good to me.”

“You really are soft on those herbs, aren’t you?” Aziraphale couldn’t help teasing.

Crowley sighed softly, and mumbled, “Know how much you like your mint tea, angel.”

Aziraphale leaned down and captured Crowley’s mouth with his own so he could taste the sweetness behind those words in a way there would be no denying. Crowley whimpered in a way that managed to sound both pained and happy, and Aziraphale smiled into the kiss.

Crowley was with him, now, right here.


End file.
